Paying Attention to Injuries and Their Emotional Causes

Florida in December, awaiting the 20-degree dips and enjoying these last days of abundant blooms. Photo copyright by Lorna Tedder.

This article is from the upcoming book, 23 Ways I Screwed Up My Life with the Law of Attraction—and How I Fixed It

Something had been percolating unnoticed, even before I burned my hand. Burning my hand was what brought a emotional matter to my attention so I could release and possibly fix it.

What the emotional matter was isn’t really a concern of anyone’s but mine because there’s probably no way anyone else is dealing with the same issue. I didn’t even know that I was! The “energy” of the issue was a slow buildup of frustration, of mixed signals, of being unwittingly reminded of old pain I’d put away, of being doomed to repeat something from my past. I’ve read enough of the Abraham-Hicks teachings that my mind immediately goes now to this energetic connection whenever I have an illness or injury.

It was an utterly stupid way to burn myself. I wasn’t any more distracted than I usually am when I have four things going in my head at once (standard for me), but there was a particular situation I was thinking about and had been since an enlightening conversation the day before. I suppose I should be greatful that I don’t work with explosives or blow torches! This particular issue was on my mind as I was making a really yummy, healthy dinner for myself–and thinking about how all these good health habits will continue to pay off and where I’ll be in six months and my situation then as it applies to the emotional issue I mentioned earlier. I had placed a paper towel on top of the dish and it had soaked up some of the leftover, microwaved liquid without my realizing it. Yes, the dish and food were hot and I was taking extreme precautions not to get burned, but I didn’t even see that the paper towel was wet in one corner when I started to remove it… until it was on my hand and then I was losing my balance, flipping the scalding liquid onto the delicate skin of the back of my hand, upsetting the dish, and watching in excruciatingly slow motion as the dish and food bounced into the air and tumbled down to a shattered and sticky mess onto about 40 square feet of hard tiles. I suppose it’s amazing that I didn’t end up wearing the hot contents of the dish and burning myself worse.

I backed up…across shattered glass…and just stood there for a while, clasping my hand in pain before I could pick my way barefoot to the burn-alleviating herbs that I have grown in the kitchen for all my adult life. My thoughts weren’t “OMG, I burned my hand!” but “What’s going on with me that I burned my hand?”

I immediately thought of the last time an injury made me stop in my tracks and realize I needed to change something that was building inside me and coming out in erratic injuries. That time, after a lot of internal anger I kept tamping down and at least four minor accidents in an hour’s time, I ended up sitting on my garage floor and sobbing because the heavy items that had just fallen on my head hurt so badly–and I needed to release my feelings from earlier in the day and change my energy to something more serene that wouldn’t attract accidents. At that point, I was genuinely afraid I’d accidentally do permanent damage to myself if I couldn’t just STOP and breathe.

So this time, I stood there in my kitchen, staring at my red hand and registering the pain, the sting, the frustration that I’d been so awfully careful not to get burned and it had been what was hidden that had scalded me, upset my balance, left me shattered. And those were symptoms of what else that was going on in my life that I wasn’t paying attention to? The energy is the same, and with most injuries and illnesses, the symptoms correlate to the emotional energy that preceded them.

I tended my injuries, cleaned up the floor and mopped it, decided to forgo my 1.5 hours of P90X Yoga because my hand hurt so badly. I went to bed but didn’t sleep for a long time, knowing that in the morning, I would need to do something about the situation that the injury reflected all too well so I could release my pent-up frustrations.